Established in 2006, the Keystone State Education Coalition is a growing grass roots, non-partisan public education advocacy group of several hundred locally elected, volunteer school board members and administrators from school districts throughout Pennsylvania. Our mission is to evaluate, discuss and inform our boards, district constituents and legislators on legislative issues of common interest and to facilitate active engagement in public education advocacy.

Media Advisory and Background for September 23rd Pennsylvania School Funding Press Event

Grassroots
Advocacy by Education Voters PA; Education Matters in the CumberlandValley and
the KeystoneState Education Coalition

Every
child in Pennsylvania deserves
an opportunity to learn, whether they are from large or small, rich or
not-so-rich, urban, suburban or rural school districts, charter schools or
cyber schools; whether their legislator is a freshman state representative or a
senate officer.

Advocates Come to PA Capitol to Make Public Call for'Thorough and Efficient System of Education'

Press Conference Monday, Sept. 23 at 11:30 a.m. in Capitol Rotunda

HARRISBURG, PA — Parents, teachers, superintendents, community members, and other education advocates will gather for a press conference at the State Capitol on Monday, Sept. 23 at 11:30 a.m. to highlight the ongoing problems schools face as a result of state funding cuts and the lack of a rational school funding formula.

The only service that Pennsylvania is required to provide in the state Constitution is a “thorough and efficient system of education.” The community leaders headed to Harrisburg on Sept. 23 will demand that our state lawmakers make this constitutional responsibility their first priority in the fall legislative session so that every student in Pennsylvania has an opportunity to learn.

Advocates have already collected 1,282 signatures (coming from 219 districts in 51 counties) on a petition that states: The Pennsylvania General Assembly must adopt a fair education funding formula AND provide the funding investments needed to ensure that every student has an opportunity to learn.

MEDIA COVERAGE IS WELCOME AT THE SEPT. 23 PRESS CONFERENCE.

WHAT: Pennsylvania citizens to join public call for fair and full funding of our schools

WHO: Parents, teachers, superintendents, community members, education advocates, state lawmakers, and concerned citizens from school districts across Pennsylvania — rural, urban and suburban; large and small; wealthy and poor; traditional and charter, including the following:

Pennsylvania
is a national outlier when it comes to following basic budgeting principles —
accuracy, fairness, and transparency — that most states use when it comes to
public school funding, according to a new report from the Education Law Center.
The statewide, non-profit organization examined how each of the 50 states
calculates and distributes education dollars. The report shows
that Pennsylvania
is in the minority when it comes to basic budgeting practices used by most
states.

47 states use an accurate
student count when calculating and distributing education dollars. Pennsylvania does
not.

37 states recognize different
student costs when calculating and distributing education dollars. Pennsylvania does
not.

47 states recognize different
district costs when calculating and distributing education dollars. Pennsylvania does
not.

“According to the PhiladelphiaPublic School Notebook and
WHYY/NewsWorks, 33 of the 37 lawmakers who represent the 21 districts that
received extra funds are legislative leaders, committee chairs, vice chairs or
secretaries.”Legislators give $30.3M to 21
school districts behind closed doors

Lancaster gets $2.4 million surprise but cash-strapped Columbia doesn't get
a dime

Twenty-one
of Pennsylvania's
500 school districts got a nice surprise in the state's new budget: extra cash
for these tough times. Districts large, small and in-between benefited,
including the Allentown schools, with
nearly 19,000 students, the School District ofLancaster, with 11,200,
and a rural PotterCounty district, with only 184
pupils.
But cash-strapped ColumbiaSchool District was not among the
lucky 21. Because the district struggles to meet the needs of nearly 1,000 poor
children in a borough with a weak tax base, Laura Cowburn wonders why it was
left out.

By Holly
Otterbein @hollyotterbein and Dale Mezzacappa for the Notebook July 11, 2013

When Pennsylvania's Republican-led
legislature added more than $30 million in education aid to Gov. Tom Corbett's
proposed budget last month, lawmakers decided to target $14.5 million to
districts with high numbers of English-language learners and $4 million to
districts with large concentrations of students in charter schools.

But they
managed to devise the formulas for these supplements in such a way that Philadelphia's school
district, which has nearly half of the state's charter students and one-quarter
of its English-language learners, got none of these funds. This in a year when
the district was desperately begging Corbett and legislature for additional
state aid just to remain solvent.

In fact,
the extra money for schools impacted by charters and ELL students went to only
six districts around the state — most of it, perhaps not coincidentally, in
communities represented by powerful legislators.

“Since 1991-92 there has
been no set formula for providing funds for schools. 65% of all funds now
distributed in this school year are based on statistics from the 1989-90 school
year. It is, however, noteworthy that a six-year formula-driven plan was
proposed in Fiscal Year 2008-2009. The plan failed because only parts of it
were ever implemented during FY 2008-09 and 2009-10, and the General Assembly
chose to abandon any further references to the plan in subsequent years.”

THE HISTORY OF SCHOOL
FUNDING IN PENNSYLVANIA 1682
- 2013

The Pennsylvania Association
of Rural and Small Schools

Written by
Janice Bissett and Arnold Hillman Updated September 2013

The
following monograph was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Association of Rural
and Small Schools (PARSS). During the constant debates over the fairness
of our current system of school funding in the Commonwealth, there did not seem
to be a concise reference that included all of the various ways of funding
schools over the many years of public education.

About Me

Mark Twain: "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board."
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School Director, School District of Haverford Township, since 1999;
Chairman, Delaware County School Boards Legislative Council;
Founder and Co-Chair, Southeastern Pennsylvania School Districts’ Education Coalition/Keystone State Education Coalition, Board of Directors, PA School Boards Assocation
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If you have any feedback or links to articles that might be a good fit on this blog please email me at lawrenceafeinberg@gmail.com
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